


New Year's Resolutions

by ComplicatedLight



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Excel spreadsheet-based silliness, M/M, fairly fluffy!, lavender is the new black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:48:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComplicatedLight/pseuds/ComplicatedLight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbie works out what he really wants in life. Or should that be <i>who</i>?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first full length fic - how chuffed am I about hatching it and kicking it out of the nest? Pretty damned chuffed :-)
> 
> I think the events are probably set a couple of years ago, though I'm a bit vague about that.
> 
> Thanks to [dogpoet](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dogpoet/pseuds/dogpoet) for such a quick, kindly, and educative first beta experience! All remaining foolishness is mine, and mine alone.

It’s the evening of New Year’s Day and Robbie’s chatting with Lyn on the phone. It starts out ok, with them wishing each other Happy New Year and talking about Lyn and Tim’s plans for work on their house. They natter on for a bit longer about nothing much, until Lyn asks him what he had for dinner. The problem is that he’s honest and tells her he had steak pie and oven chips, and thoroughly enjoyed it. She goes quiet for a few seconds, and then his heart lurches as he realises that she’s crying quietly at the other end of the line. He’s got no idea what’s upset her, but he keeps talking to her soothingly until she calms a little. Eventually she starts to explain, sounding very young and very far away, that she’s terrified he’s going to die, that he’ll have a heart attack or a stroke and be gone, suddenly and shockingly, just like her mum.

Lyn has been pestering him for ages to eat more healthily and to lose some weight, and of course he knows she worries about him, but until this evening he’s had no real understanding of just how scared she is, how preoccupied she is with the possibility of losing him. He does his best to reassure her that he’s fine, that he does eat better than that at least some of the time (especially when James takes pity on him and cooks a meal), and that running around after criminals keeps him pretty fit. She doesn’t argue with what he’s saying, and she’s calmer when they say goodbye, but he doubts that she’s convinced, really. He not sure he’s convinced, if he’s honest with himself.

So, now he’s sitting on his sofa, a beer in hand, wondering how best to ease her worries. Before she got upset, Lyn had been talking about her New Year’s resolutions. She always makes them, just like her mum had, and just like her mum’s resolutions, they usually involve learning something new. Val took up conversational Greek one year, and some sort of fancy embroidery another. Lyn was talking about signing up for ballroom dancing classes, if she can persuade Tim to go with her. With a little smile Robbie realises that the answer is staring him in the face – he’ll email Lyn a list of his own health-improving, life-extending resolutions.

So, he grabs his laptop, and another beer from the fridge, and settles down to think. He starts the email, then remembers that Lyn’s been having problems with her home email account, so he’ll have to look for her work email address later:

_To:_  
 _Subject: New Year’s Resolutions!_  
 _From: Robert Lewis_

_Hi Love,_

_I know you worry about me so I thought you might be interested in seeing my New Year’s resolutions:_

_**1\. Eat salad at least three times a week** _  
_**2\. Don’t drink beer on work nights** _  
_**3\. Get some regular exercise** _

Robbie comes to a halt. He can’t think of anything else to write. The problem is, he knows these are the kinds of resolutions he ought to be making, but if he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t really want to do any of them. He takes a mouthful of beer and thinks. It begs the question, doesn’t it – what does he actually want to do? If he were going to make resolutions about what he really wants to change or do with his life over the next twelve months, what would go on the list?

He sits, gazing blankly at the screen for what feels like an age, long enough in fact to finish his second beer, and nothing, not one bloody thing, comes to mind. Can that be right, that there’s nothing he wants to do, or do differently over the next year? Clearly life’s perfect then, he thinks, huffing out a short, harsh laugh at the painful absurdity of that thought. He’s a lonely, bored, frustrated man, the wrong side of fifty, frequently irritated, rarely content. A defrosted steak pie is the highlight of his day. Aye, life’s perfect.

He’s had enough of this stupid idea, and wanders off to go to the loo, then get another drink, but when he comes back to the lounge, thinking he’ll just watch a bit of telly, the laptop’s sitting there, waiting for him, and so he sighs and settles down with it on his knees again. And maybe it’s the third beer that’s got him a bit unfocused, a bit giddy, but he starts to let his mind wander, just to see what’ll show up if he stops trying to be so bloody sensible and just tries to notice what he fancies doing, what might make life feel a bit more, well, alive.

So he sits with his feet up on the coffee table, just letting his mind drift from thought to thought until suddenly, something pops into his head that is so daft, so childish, so completely ridiculous that he instantly swats it away like he would an annoying insect, buzzing round his head. And just like an annoying insect, the instant he stops swatting it away, the thought, the ridiculous, childish thought reappears, right in front of him. Buzzing. And so, after a couple more mouthfuls of beer, and a couple more failed attempts at coming up with a resolution even a little more befitting a man of his age and standing, he gives up, and decides to just have a bit of fun with this, not to send it to Lyn, but just to do this for himself. So, the daft idea, the one that doesn’t want to be swatted, is added to the list:

**_4\. Do something to really annoy Peterson_ **

Lewis can’t quite believe he’s written it. What is he, an eight year old?! He notices that he’s not deleting it though. In fact it’s the only one of the resolutions he’s come up with so far that he actually feels any interest in putting into action. He grins to himself. OK then, if that’s the way this is going to go, what else? What else does he actually want to do? He takes another long swig of beer and then smiles as the next idea forms in his mind:

**_5\. See the Rolling Stones play live_ **

That’s more like it! He knows that they’re probably forty years past their prime, and him wanting to see them probably confirms that he is too, but he’s always regretted not going to many gigs when he was younger. Val was keen enough, but they didn’t have spare money to spend on expensive tickets, and he’s always wanted to see what the Stones are like live. And thinking about the state of them the last time he’d seen Mick and Keith interviewed on the telly, how wizened they looked, he probably doesn’t have the luxury of putting it off for a few more years. He feels the resolution firming up inside him, and makes a plan to look up on the internet where they’re touring this year (maybe Lyn’ll help him sort out the booking side of things), and he’ll travel, abroad even, to see them. Sod the money; maybe it’s time, finally, to let himself live a little.

It’s a short leap from musing on where he might end up travelling to see them play, to thinking about a holiday, a proper, two weeks in the sun, foreign holiday. And so he adds:

**_6\. Have a holiday abroad: Italy maybe? Greece? Somewhere sunny and relaxed_ **

But holidays really are lonely on your own. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Even if he’s decided that he’s ready to start living a bit, he doesn’t really want to go on holiday by himself. Worse than not going at all to his way of thinking. But who could he go with? A couple of years ago he thought about seeing if Lyn and Tim wanted to go somewhere with him, and they probably would have said yes. But he knew deep down that his idea of a nice holiday – pretty much a sleepy hotel in a sleepy town – would have bored them to tears, and in the end he just couldn’t bring himself to ask them to give up their precious annual leave for a holiday they really wouldn’t enjoy.

And it’s not just the having someone there to share the holiday, it’s the knowing that you’ll be able to reminisce with that person, to relive the best bits, the funny bits, even the grotty bits with them. And who does he have in his life who  
1\. Would enjoy the same kind of quiet, relaxed holiday as him, away from the clubs and the drunken teenagers,  
2\. He gets on well enough with that they might actually enjoy spending time together,  
3\. He could imagine nattering to for months afterwards, about what they saw and where they ate?

And of course, inevitably, there’s a murmur, the softest of whispers at the back of his mind: _James_. And he simultaneously both feels the truth of this, and cannot believe the rubbish his mind comes up with. He actually pushes the laptop away, none too gently, and starts trying to tell himself that the whole thing was a daft idea in the first place, and he should get back to emailing Lyn about fruit and veg. But he’s not stupid, and he’s been a detective, an observer of human emotions and motivations for thirty years, so he can’t really get away with such a crass attempt at self-censorship. This has become an exercise in honesty with himself, if no one else. This is about what he wants, what he would want, if he were actually going to put any of this into action, which Rolling Stones gig excepted perhaps, he’s not. So, hypothetically only:

**_7\. Invite James to go on holiday_ **

Robbie wanders to the kitchen, helps himself to a couple of crackers, and starts imagining what being on holiday with James would be like. Images pass through his mind. Getting up early before the day gets too hot. Wandering round a picturesque old town, with James explaining the significance of an architectural feature he probably wouldn’t have even noticed. Teasing James about his sunburnt nose. Finding a quiet little café or taverna overlooking the sea and sitting together through a leisurely lunch. And then heading back to the hotel for a siesta, dozing off next to each other on the bed, relaxed and comfortable. The bed. The bed?! And much to his consternation, however hard he tries (and he really does try, for a while), Robbie can’t seem to get them into separate beds in his daydream, and in the end – because this strange evening has turned into an exercise in honesty, unsettling, unpredictable honesty – he stops trying.

Instead, he brings his detective’s curiosity to the issue of why his imagination seems so keen on him and James sleeping next to each other. He puts the laptop down on the coffee table in front of him, lies back on the sofa, and tries to imagine what it would feel like, what his mind is finding so appealing about having James lying next to him on a hotel bed, on a sunny, Mediterranean afternoon. And what he imagines is feeling warm and happy and comfortable, and given that what he’s thinking about is dozing next to his sergeant – his very tall, very male sergeant –strangely that doesn’t seem at all odd. He can imagine drifting off to sleep, safe and secure next to James, perhaps wrapping an arm round him to get comfortable, resting his head against James’ back, breathing in his familiar smell.

 _Christ_. _Where is this stuff coming from? How the hell do I know how James smells?_ But of course, he does. And he knows he does, though it’s taken several beers and a very strange evening for him to allow that knowing to surface. So there it is then, number 8, last item on the hypothetical, never to be spoken about, never to be acted upon list of Robbie’s true wants.

**_8\. Lie next to James. Cuddle James. Sleep next to James._ **

Robbie falls asleep on the sofa, laptop balanced on his legs, and wakes in the middle of the night, back aching and desperate for the loo. He nearly sends the laptop flying as he gets up, and realises, groggily, that he can’t remember if he saved the email or not, and he does have a feeling that he’ll want to read it again, in a rather more sober state. So, barely able to open his eyes, he wakes the computer up and saves a draft, or at least he thinks he does, though the email seems to have disappeared and he’s too tired to investigate further. He staggers to the loo and then his bed and sleeps the drugged, dreamless sleep of the moderately inebriated and completely oblivious.

 

 

The next morning

The alarm goes off at an ungodly hour and Robbie is not feeling his best as he showers and gets ready for work. He makes some tea and toast and sits on the sofa, gazing into space. His eyes alight on the laptop, still open on the coffee table, and he decides to check the BBC news website while he’s eating. As the webpage is loading, there’s the ping of an email arriving. He only ever gets emails from three people – Lyn, Mark (rarely), and James. He wonders whether Lyn’s emailed him about last night, and thinks he’d better check, but then he sees that actually it’s an email from James. He’s just having an irritable thought along the lines of _why’s the daft sod emailing me now when he’ll see me in half an hour_ , when he registers the subject line, and his heart contracts so violently that if he were as vulnerable to heart attacks as Lyn fears (which happily, he’s not), this would probably, irony of ironies, have triggered one.

 

From: James Hathaway  
Subject: Re: New Year’s Resolutions!  
Date Received: Today

There’s only one word in Robbie’s mind, in his entire vocabulary right now, and it is _Shit. Shit. Shit. Oh Shit._

 

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your unexpected and enlightening email. I read it with great interest. I have made some comments, and I have also taken the liberty of extending the list to make a total of ten resolutions – eight seemed untidy and incomplete.

James

 

_Hi Love,_

_I know you worry about me so I thought you might be interested in seeing my New Year’s resolutions:_

_**1\. Eat salad at least three times a week**_  
Sir, I feel that it’s my duty as someone who cares about your health to point out that the anaemic lettuce at the bottom of the kebab carton doesn’t really count – in truth, the carton probably has more nutritional value than the lettuce. Forgive me.

 _ **2\. Don’t drink beer on work nights**_  
Sir, ironically, I imagine you had partaken of said beverage when you wrote and sent this list.

 _ **3\. Get some regular exercise**_  
See 9 and 10.

 ** _4\. Do something to really annoy Peterson_**  
I’ve drawn up a list of 17 possible options (see attached document). I wish to be Sundance to your Butch Cassidy in this matter, Sir, Mutley to your Dastardly, Boo Boo to your Yogi.

 ** _5\. See the Rolling Stones play live_**  
Sir. Sir! The Rolling Stones? Really? As your sergeant I frequently find myself in the position of needing to trust your judgement. This has never been a problem before. It is now. I do, however, know my place. I understand that you are my superior officer, and my job is to act upon your every wish. My research indicates that they’re playing Rome in September. Sir – should I go ahead and book our tickets?

 ** _6\. Have a holiday abroad: Italy maybe? Greece? Somewhere sunny and relaxed_**  
Might I suggest a Greek island? Paros? I hear it’s beautiful, peaceful, warm. Archilochus, the Archaic lyrical poet, was born there*. The local marble was used for the Venus de Milo. It has a very low murder rate. Lovely squid. Just a thought, Sir.  
*Example poem fragment attached – in translation, of course. I know you’ve neglected your ancient Greek of late.

 ** _7\. Invite James to go on holiday_**  
Invitation accepted, Sir. Thank you. I think early summer in Greece would be very pleasant. If you’d like to come round to my place for dinner tonight, we could look at some hotels on-line. I have a very good recipe for moussaka.

 _ **8\. Lie next to James. Cuddle James. Sleep next to James**_  
Is this option only available on holiday, Sir?

 ** _9\. Lie next to James, cuddle James, and don’t sleep_**  
In fact, lie next to James, hold him in my arms, and kiss him. Passionately. Nakedly. Wantonly. Filthily. The kind of kissing that involves bite marks on necks and hands inside clothes. Well, more precisely, hands on cocks, hands around cocks. And mouths, mouths around cocks. And the need for a doze afterwards, and then a shower to wash the stickiness off. A shower that should be shared because water is scarce on the Greek islands, even in early summer. Sir.

**_10\. Repeat 9. Regularly_ **

 

Robbie, as calmly and methodically as he can – which isn’t very, given that his heart is thumping so loudly he can hardly hear himself think – goes through the evidence, the possibilities.

1\. Maybe somehow he wrote all this late last night and sent it to himself? Nah, he wasn’t that drunk. He’s pretty sure he’d remember writing himself a fantasy email from his sergeant.

2\. Maybe he sent his email to Lyn by mistake and this is her idea of a joke, though he’s got no idea how she could make it look like it was from James. But he only has to reread number 9 to know that it didn’t come from Lyn – she might be broadminded, and she can swear like a navvy when she’s had a bit to drink, but there’s no way she’d send something like that to her dad.

3\. Maybe – tired and under the influence – he accidentally sent the email to James, and this is James’ idea of a joke? Robbie feels a little sick. Well, he has to admit, all the evidence indicates that the email is from James. Apart from the email account name, who else would send him Greek poetry, for God’s sake?! If it is from James, and he’s taking the piss, the only good thing that can be said is that he doesn’t appear to have taken offence. But Robbie, feeling heavy to his bones, can’t quite see how he can ever look James in the eye again. How he can be his governor, knowing that James knows. And knowing that James, on understanding Robbie’s feelings, was cruel enough to taunt him in this way.

No. That’s not right. The fear that’s clenched around his guts, his heart, releases just a little, because he knows, he knows, that that isn’t right. He _knows_ James. Yes, he can be a sarcastic sod, a facetious pain in the arse at times. But James isn’t cruel, and Robbie knows that James cares about him, wants him to be happy. He can bring to mind so many memories of James going out of his way to be helpful, to look after him, to make his life easier. So yes, it does look like the email is from James, but no, there is no way James would mock him like this.  
So that leaves one final possibility, something so astonishing, so crazy, that it has Robbie running his hands through his hair and grinning like an idiot.

4\. Maybe he accidentally sent the email to James – Freud would have had something to say about that, he’s sure – and this is James saying yes. This is James saying yes, without guile or hesitation, to whatever Robbie can offer. And he wants to offer so much, so much care and affection. Love even. He’s not at all sure about number 9 though – Christ! He can barely admit to himself that he might like to cuddle James – so they’re going to have to talk about that. And how the hell is he meant to start a conversation with his sergeant about the fact that he’s not sure he’s ready to suck him off, but sleeping together would be just fine? And now it’s 8.40 am, and if he doesn’t get himself moving right now, he’s going to be very late for work. But just thinking about him and James — and who might suck what — is getting him hard, which is not helping at all, though he has to admit there are worse problems to have.

So he grabs his jacket and car keys and then stands in front of the shelves above the telly, searching through the CDs until he finds what he’s looking for – The Rolling Stones – Forty Licks – a little gift for James that might break the ice on all sorts of conversations.

 

* _My Soul, my Soul, all disturbed by sorrows inconsolable,_  
 _Bear up, hold out, meet front-on the many foes that rush on you_  
 _Now from this side and now that, enduring all such strife up close,_  
 _Never wavering; and should you win, don't openly exult,_  
 _Nor, defeated, throw yourself lamenting in a heap at home,_  
 _But delight in things that are delightful and, in hard times, grieve_  
 _Not too much—appreciate the rhythm that controls men's lives._


	2. There must be 17 ways to annoy your co-worker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spreadsheet has landed!
> 
> As referred to in his response to Robbie's New Year's resolutions email, James had attached a file containing 17 possible ways they could really annoy Peterson. This is it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very silly thing!  
> Includes content suggested by and inspired by the fabulous [wendymr](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wendymr/pseuds/wendymr), [LadyKes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKes/pseuds/LadyKes), [nikirik](http://nikirik.livejournal.com/), and flowerpotgirl.

Hopefully there's something here to inspire you, Sir. I look forward to being your partner in crime. J xx


End file.
